Katherine Winship

My biggest reason!

So, in the last post, I was just about to tell you guys what’s my biggest reason for why I love Marvel over DC, and here it is. My biggest reason for loving Marvel over DC is… Iron Man. Now hold your horses people, it’s more than just a fangirl type of love for one superhero, it’s more than just that. It’s the fact that the movie came out at the right time and had opened the gateway to superheroes for me. When the movie “Iron Man” came out, I was around the age of seven. Now, if you know science, and you know me, personality of the brain seems to be set in stone once you reach the age of seven, so Marvel had jumped in at the nick of time. Now, I already loved the idea of superheroes and science by this time, but when Iron Man came out, I was instantly smitten. I wanted to go see it so badly, and fortunately, my dad also being a geek for superheroes, brought my sister and I to go see it. My sister wasn’t very moved by the movie, but I? It was set in stone inside my mind. I saw it a second time, a third time, a fourth time, and I was instantly bought. And then two years later, while I was still in my “Iron Man” addiction, they came out with a SECOND Iron Man movie, which strengthened my love for Iron Man even more. Now, by the time this movie has come out, I had done my research, and I had learned about other superheroes, so that when I saw some little tidbits hinting towards other superheroes, I actually knew it when I saw them. The creators of both movies did an amazing job, and even though my love for the movies has faded over time, my love for the superheroes still stayed. A year after that, my horizons were opened with completely new heroes, with the movies Thor and Captain America coming out, but I was also alerted of another set of superheroes; DC. Their first superhero movie (while I was alive and I wasn’t in diapers) was the Green Lantern, but, unfortunately, it didn’t come out a success. Now, because I was always optimistic about movies and I was very knit picky about what movies I chose (that’s why I haven’t seen that many movies at all), I thought it was good movie at the time. But the reaction I had for Iron Man… Wasn’t in Green Lantern. But, I will say this; all these facts, all these reasons, all of this, does not mean I do not like DC. No, that’s not the case, especially in recent days with the new CW shows Arrow, The Flash and Supergirl. Look, my point is this; I love all the superheroes (well, most of them), but there are a select few in my arsenal that I would gladly take over others. Like Green Lantern and the Flash from DC, or Captain America and Iron Man from Marvel. I like the Green Lantern because he told me about the presence of DC, and Iron Man because he always will hold that place in my heart because he got me into the superhero universe (and besides he’s badass), but it’s the Flash and Captain America that I relate to. For the Cap, we’re both not so connected to the modern day as others, and we both seem to follow the same morales, like religion and not using cuss words unless the time given for it (“Language!”- Captain America). For the Flash, well, I have that overall giddiness and love for science, among my friends I tend to be the serious and silly one, and I was given the chance to run because of science. You see, I was born with a club foot, and in some areas of the world that’s a death sentence in an of itself. But thanks to my doctor, I now am able to run, and if I really want to, I can run really fast (just not for long amounts of time, so don’t ask me to join track or soccer or anything like that). Oh yeah, and I’m a red head, duh, how could I forget that? Overall, if you look in my room, I have a Flash poster hanging right next to my “Avengers, age of Ultron” poster and my comic-con pre-Avengers poster. Anyways, the moral is this; both DC comics and Marvel are great superhero companies, but it’s Marvel that has captured my heart. Well that’s all I have to say, so bye!

Marvel vs DC battle!

So, as I had mentioned in the previous blog post, I like Marvel more than DC. And I know that this is one of the biggest battles that has ever been known, and I might get yelled at for this, but I’m just throwing in my two cents into the argument. So, as I said in the last article, one of my reasons for why I like Marvel is because Marvel’s superheroes are much more brave. We can see them do things that are thought of as brave, and as I was only able to write down two examples of Marvel superheroes being brave due to length, I had many other examples, but I’ll leave that up to you guys to find out for yourself. But, Marvel has heroes that while although being very OP, we can relate to them more because they have a weakness, sometimes multiple weaknesses. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman; the top three superheroes of the DC Universe and of superheroes in general. They are basically gods compared to everyone else in their overly OP powers, their popularity, their timelessness, “always the winner” attitude, exedra exedra. And while that is good in an of itself, those very facts can also drive away people. We can’t connect to them because they don’t have a weakness. Take superman for example. During the early days of comic books, all Superman was, was a God. Sure, he had the timeless superpowers of flight, heat vision (not laser vision, it’s a common misconception), frost breath, super speed, and super strength, but at that time, if Superman happened to be in a jam that he couldn’t get out of, he’d just form another super power out of the blue, use it, and then we’d never see it again. Like, he was able to shape shift by just simply molding his head with his own hands, clear memories with a kiss, make holographic versions of himself, or even shoot a mini superman out of his hand! How the heck does that work?! *Ahem* Sorry, getting just a little worked up right there, but my point still stands. He’s invincible, he’s unbeatable, he’s perfect. We don’t expect him to have a weakness, and that includes emotions. So when the writers decide it’s time to emotionally hurt Superman, we the audience and the other characters think he has gone crazy. He didn’t learn how to cope with sadness as a young child, he never learned about that emotion. I mean, sure, he could of seen friends and family feeling sad, but he didn’t actually feel that pain that they experienced. Now before you guys say “but lost his parents and his family! That’s pain!”, no. No it is not. He was a baby when the planet exploded, he doesn’t remember anything. He didn’t know he came from another planet until his dad told him! *Ahem* Sorry, getting off topic again. Anyways, another reason why I like Marvel more than DC is because the superheroes there are not things you answer too. The Justice League is just one gigantic group of superheroes that eventually made a organization. While the Avengers were created by either Tony Stark or by SHIELD (depends on which version you look at).

Bravery. What is it?

“Heroes aren’t fearless. Heroes are brave. Bravery requires fear. And fear is born of loving something enough that it’s loss would break you.” – Unknown. So, what is bravery? We use the word to describe to so many people’s (and sometimes pets) actions, and most of the time we do use it correctly, but those small amounts of time that we use it incorrectly causes us to blur up the description. So, what does it mean? The dictionary term of “brave” is “ready to face and endure danger or pain; showing courage”. Well, what is courage? Courage is “the ability to do something that frightens oneself”. So, the definition of being “brave” is that, even though you are afraid of whatever you are facing; whether it may be a giant hulking robot, a terrible illness, a gigantic army of evil-doers (because those totally exist), or even just facing the ordinary school bullies, you don’t let that fear affect you. You don’t allow your fear of these things to affect and control you. But, another part of being brave is that it’s selfless. It’s a selfless act done by someone in order to help others. You can’t be brave for yourself, that’s just the flight-or-fight response in you. But if you are doing this to protect the people (and animals) that you love, no matter if you know in the front part of your mind that this will defiantly lead to your death or of you being in severe pain, but you still do it without a second guess; that’s bravery. We can use this word to describe so many people; firemen, police officers, soldiers, superheroes, that cat you saw on youtube fighting off the evil dog to protect the kid (ok maybe not the last one). But, not everyone who falls under these categories is brave. Take superheroes, for example. Now, if you know me best, you know that I love Marvel more than DC. And one of the reasons why I love Marvel over DC is because Marvel has characters that fight for more than just “truth, justice, and the american way” (except for Captain America, he fights for that and other reasons.). And while both companies make brave superheroes, Marvel has what feels like way more brave superheroes than DC, and those reasons show up multiple times. (Warning, big spoilers ahead. If you haven’t seen the Avengers or Captain America, skip to the end mark) In Captain America the first movie, before he even got the “super soldier serum”, Steve Rogers threw himself onto a grenade to protect his fellow soldiers, even though they bullied him on the bootcamp. It wasn’t until six seconds of nothing happening that Steve found out that the grenade was a fake with the famous words “Is this a test?”, and is probably the reason why he became Captain America. Iron Man in the movie, “The Avengers”, learned near the end of their fight with aliens that SHIELD had launched a nuke at the city to solve the problem (cause that’s totally how to stop an alien invasion, John), and without a second thought latched himself onto the nuke, and drove it up through the portal and launched it at the alien space station. Even with Captain America telling him that this was a one way trip, the dude who said like, forty five minutes ago that he knew men worth ten of Tony Stark, Tony still did it (and thankfully lived).(Ok, your back? Good.) DC has some brave superheroes, sure, but it’s not the same. Superman is invincible to all weapons we have against him (except for kryptonite, but that came from another planet), what is he afraid of? Bravery comes from fear, as the quote said before, and he can’t be brave if he has nothing to fear! Same goes for Wonder Woman! She was almost a female version of Superman before Supergirl came, who I have the same rant about her too! And even Batman! Even though he’s human, he has trained himself so much since he was a kid so that he could be at prime physical and mental condition that he has reached a whole new level of human. I’m pretty sure that his feelings of revenge and justice has covered his bravery so much that the title of the animated series shouldn’t of been: “Batman; the Brave and the Bold” but “Batman; the Smart and the Brooding”. I’ve only been able to find two examples of extreme bravery from two heroes in this universe, and one time was in a video game! (That got bad reviews!) That one was Shazam, who by the end of the game “Injustice; Gods among us”, felt bad by helping Superman try to control the world, and tried to go against Superman, which is basically a death sentence in that universe, which is what happened! He got killed (very painfully as well, I might add) for trying to speak up against Superman’s crazy idea of destroying Metropolis and Gotham, and then wanted to go to the other dimension and destroy its earth. And the other one was the Barry Allen Flash in the “crisis of infinite earths” comic book series (If you haven’t heard of this than you have lived under a rock up until now). But, to put it simply, in order to protect all the multiple universes from getting destroyed, the Flash ran so fast to keep this big bomb from exploding that he literally ripped his atoms apart, which I may add, also sounds like a painful way to go. Fortunately, DC comics couldn’t keep their Silver Age superhero dead for long, and brought him back with science (unlike other heroes…). Anyways, I’m getting off topic. The point is, just because one person works for a job that people describe as brave, doesn’t mean that that person is brave. You probably won’t even notice if you or another is brave until they do something brave. So, may I ask; are you brave?

Well now that I am done rambling, I want to ask you the ordinary question; who in your life (fictional or not) is brave? Did I forget some superhero? Do you know of someone in real life that you can call as “Brave”? Tell me down in the comments! Bye!